Part 2: Extreme Makeover, Replacing Your Roof

November 10, 2014 by Jesse Curry

Inspect Your Roof After Every Major Storm

The roofs on our houses keep us safe from the weather; not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s what they’re there for. Sometimes, the weather is bad enough that a patch job just won’t cut it, and the entire roof needs to be replaced.

It’s difficult not to stress enough the importance of inspecting your roof after every major storm or other instance of severe weather. While you might have incontrovertible, visible proof after a storm or tornado that most, if not all, of your roof might need to be replaced, and replaced right now, many cases of extensive roof damage just aren’t all that evident, at least not without a professional assessment. It might be that the last storm just hit your roof in such a way that all the previous wear and damage compounded and it’s become more economical to replace the entire roof than to attempt to repair what you currently have.

Sometimes, it’s not even the roof directly that needs to be replaced. A roofing inspection might turn up that, though your roof itself is fine, the supports for the roof might not be. Especially with older houses, over time several factors may contribute to the fact that your house just can’t quite support your roof anymore. It’s possible that, at some stage, mold or rot set in, affecting the structural integrity of your home.

This is not to downplay just how much damage a good (or is that bad?) storm can do to your house and roof. Roof damage after a storm can get so bad that an entire industry of fraudulent roofing contractors, commonly known as“storm chasers,” have grown up around the fact that lots of people end up needing new roofs after a storm. Peoples’ anxiety over the state of their roofs after just such a severe weather event is real, and these storm chasers prey on those anxieties, using them to con people out of their money in exchange for shoddy patch jobs before riding off for the next storm and the next town.

Ultimately, if your roof is about to fall down around you, then it’s a bad idea to tough it out. Get that roof replaced before you end up needing to fix more than just the roof.

Next up, Part 3, coming soon, discusses how the need or desire for change can lead to replacing the roof.